Larger than Life (1996) UA/Comedy RT: 93 minutes Rated PG (mild language) Director: Howard Franklin Screenplay: Roy Blount Jr., Pen Densham and Garry Williams Music: Miles Goodman Cinematography: Elliot Davis Release date: November 1, 1996 (US) Cast: Bill Murray, Tai, Matthew McConaughey, Janeane Garofalo, Jeremy Piven, Pat Hingle, Linda Fiorentino, Keith David, Tracey Walter, Harve Presnell, Anita Morris, Lois Smith, Maureen Mueller. Box Office: $8.3M (US)
Rating: **
Maybe it’s old age creeping in, but Larger than Life isn’t as horrible as I remember it being back in ’96. Oh, it’s lame alright, but it has a precious few mildly amusing bits scattered throughout that hint at what it could have been with more commitment from its talented players and makers.
Director Howard Franklin previously worked with Bill Murray on Quick Change, a nifty little crime caper that nobody went to see in summer ’90. Murray has a knack for playing detached characters but he seems curiously absent in Larger than Life like he’d rather be anywhere else other than starring alongside an elephant in a dopey road comedy. To be fair, it’s a long way down from Stripes and Ghostbusters.
It would probably suffice to describe the plot of Larger than Life as follows: Bill Murray travels cross-country with an elephant. It’s as apt a description as any. Although tempted, I have to go into more detail. I apologize for it in advance.
Murray plays Jack Corcoran, a third-rate motivational speaker using speaking engagements to hawk his book Get Over It. I’d like to hit pause for a sec to talk about the opening sequence in which Murray’s character builds a human pyramid while addressing the guests at a reclining chair convention. This is one of the bits that tease us with the possibility of what Larger than Life might have been.
Motivational speakers are a perfect target for satire. The idea that they can teach you to solve your problems with a few well-worded rules and dumb exercises like building human pyramids is ridiculous if you really think about it. They’re little more than snake-oil salesmen. A comedy about this subject (minus the pachyderm, of course) would work especially with Murray in the lead. It’s the only time he shows any sign of life in Larger than Life.
Back to the subject at hand, Jack’s life isn’t all that inspirational. His career is at a point where the best his agent (Piven, PCU) can hope for is a speaking gig that leads to an infomercial. The women in his life, his mother (Gillette, Moonstruck) and fiancee (Mueller, The New Age), run it for him. Then at his engagement party, he reads a telegram informing him that his father recently died and left him a huge inheritance. He always thought his father died before he was born, but it turns out his mother lied. She left him because he was “irresponsible”.
ANYWAY, Jack hightails it to the Baltimore office of the attorney (Presnell, Fargo) handing his father’s estate. It turns out Dad was a circus clown and the “huge inheritance” is his pet elephant Vera (Tai, Operation Dumbo Drop). In addition, he owes $35,000 for all the damage caused by Vera running loose in town. Obviously, Jack doesn’t have that kind of money so he decides to sell Vera. It’ll either be to Mo (Garofalo, Reality Bites), a San Diego Zoo employee planning to send a herd of elephants to Sri Lanka for breeding, or Terry (Fiorentino, The Last Seduction), a sadistic trainer in L.A. willing to pay whatever he asks. Either way, he has only three days to get the elephant to California. It won’t be easy.
The man and his pachyderm have many misadventures along the way including a run-in with Tip Tucker (McConaughey, A Time to Kill), a crazy trucker with some wild conspiracy theories including a particularly gross one about school lunches. They make an enemy of him after tricking him into driving them part of the way to their destination. Honestly, he’s the only one in Larger than Life that doesn’t phone it in. McConaughey commits to his character full tilt boogie. Tip is a total loon. He livens up the movie more than anyone else, even Tai.
For the most part, Larger than Life follows Murray’s lead in being lazy and laid-back. Movies about people trying to achieve impossible goals should have a lot of energy with characters frustrated to the point of near insanity. It clomps when it should zip along.
The saddest thing about Larger than Life is all the talent is pisses away. I love Garofalo and Fiorentino but they both go sadly underused here. Talk about phoning it in, most of Murray’s interactions with them are over the phone. Piven and Presnell are criminally wasted in underwritten roles in this flat-footed comedy. Same goes for Pat Hingle (Sudden Impact) as an old circus crony of Jack’s dad. Worst of all, none of them seem to even care. They all approach their parts with equal indifference.
For all its faults, Larger than Life has a heart. I must admit to being slightly moved by the scene where one of Vera’s tricks comes in handy during a flood in a small village in New Mexico. The ending would have been more effective if we better understood the relationship between Jack and his fiancee. Then again, the fact that he doesn’t call her even once during his trip tells you everything you need to know. Either that or the writers simply forgot. I wouldn’t be surprised. Why shouldn’t they be allowed to be as lazy as everyone else involved? I’ll also give credit to Tai for turning in one of the best performances I’ve ever seen from an elephant. Is there an Oscar for that? Well, there should be.
